First European Wins the Hobie Fishing World Championship

After 3 days of intensive and exciting tournament fishing, the 7th Hobie Fishing World Championship came down to the final intense moments yesterday.

Rob Baginski (CAN) who led the competition on day one struggled in the last hours of the day to fill his bag, as did second placed Salah Eddine el Barbouchi (GER) as well as third and fourth-placed Jack Gammie (AUS) and Ian Pickering (UK).

Late in the afternoon in front of the event site crowd el Barbouchi fished nonstop literally to the final seconds, throwing cast after cast inside the harbour as he came into dock his Hobie Pro Angler 14 kayak.

It had been a glassy morning on Lake Vanern and the early bite for Pike had closed down in the “honey hole” close to the Power-Pole Starting line and others struggled further afield as well. El Barbouchi however, managed to pull aboard Pike after Pike as the breeze began to enter the bays he fished. He upgraded four times while others were lucky to manage just one fish.

He had caught one legal Perch as well when he pedalled over in a major act of sportsmanship to openly share the lure and techniques he had used to catch the two solid Pike he was to present to the scorer. He even stayed with those anglers and advised them a little longer before heading off to find the elusive Perch, that in the end even to the final seconds, he was never able to secure.

Baginski, Gammie and Pickering too were unsuccessful in catching their four fish, which allowed another angler Jian Huang (CHN), who had been sitting In the top ten, to bustle his way into the top three. Baginski dropped back into second place, the second Canadian to take second after Kyle Moxon in 2014.

The little Moroccan German a truly humble sportsman, with a, never say die attitude, Salah Eddine el Barbouchi, became the 2018 Hobie Fishing World Champion the pride of Germany, and of Europe which had finally gained its first world fishing title.

A total of 188 Pike and 88 Perch were registered over the tournament for a total of 276 fish. The average size of the 276 Pike was 73.3cm and the average size of Perch was 31.3cm